


The Hunter's Heaven

by Icarus3



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Heaven's Civil War, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1280302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus3/pseuds/Icarus3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel visits Dean's grave, but can't bring himself to visit Dean's heaven</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunter's Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ["Hello, Dean" (tumblr gifset)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/39214) by supernaturalapocalypse. 



> Originally posted on Tumblr: http://destielhiseyesopened.tumblr.com/post/78799971108

 

* * *

At first, his guilt was too great. Castiel should have been there to save him. He had fallen, for love of humanity. He had tried to seal off heaven, so that he might protect them from cosmic fallout. It had all been his fault. Yet when the one human he’d loved above any other had needed him, he’d failed. How could he look the man in the eye, how could Castiel dare hope for a joyful reunion, when but for the angel’s own failure he would still be alive? So he went to the gravesite, whispered apologies and begged for forgiveness again and again, but didn’t dare visit the hunter’s heaven.

* * *

Later, there were just too many pressing matters to attend to. Yes, the war had been won, and the gates of heaven had been re-opened, but there was still chaos among the surviving angels. There was rebuilding and restructuring to do. There were tribunals and rehabilitations to oversee, to prevent some perversion of justice from serving as cover for even more bloodshed. There were councils and charters to be organized so that no matter how long it was before their Father saw fit to return, they’d be able to carry on without anything like this ever happening again. It simply wouldn’t do to abandon such important work before it was finished, to risk it all falling apart in his absence, thus making his hunter’s sacrifice in vain.

* * *

Eventually, it had simply been too long to start visiting now. The years had gone by so quickly at first that the angel hardly believed it when a decade had already passed. Then another. Time kept passing, and one day he learned that the hunter and his brother were now reunited forever. Castiel smiled sadly, knowing that his beloved one’s heaven hadn’t been truly complete until now.

He at least hadn’t been alone, though. One particularly clever (albeit strangely coiffed) human had taken advantage of the angels’ absence to establish a network of quantum causeways between personal heavens, allowing their inhabitants to visit one another at will. Many still stayed primarily in their own custom-built heavens, while others had adopted more communal afterlifestyles. The angel didn’t doubt that his hunter, and now the two of them, reveled in the opportunity to spend eternity with those who had been family – blood, or otherwise – during life. It would be selfish at this point, Castiel reasoned, to interrupt their enjoyment of this much deserved reward – to remind them of the pain which had inevitably accompanied his time with them on earth.

* * *

Surely it would do no harm, he thought in a moment of weakness, if he merely looked in on them. They wouldn’t even know he was there. The Impala was parked by the edge of a field, with two now eternally late-20-somethings sitting on its hood and looking up at a night sky marked by colorful explosions. He’d counted on that – the noise of the fireworks masking the sound of his wings.

"What’s the point of coming back here all the time when you don’t even let yourself enjoy it anymore?" the taller man asked. While he could only see their backs, at these words the angel noticed that the shorter of the two, judging by the angle of his head, was not actually watching the fireworks at all. He wasn’t looking at any particular spot, but rather, appeared to be moving his gaze periodically to look above, beside, and beyond the dazzling display – as if searching for something arriving from the sky.

"Cause this is the first place he found me, when he sent us to find the Garden. So, serves to reason, this is where he’ll come now." After a slight pause, he added, "That answer’s not gonna change just cause you keep asking."

The tall one looked down and sighed. “If he was going to-“

"He will!" the other man cut him off, a sudden edge in his voice, and they sat in silence. Castiel felt the dull ache he’d grown accustomed to carrying in his chest grow sharper as the meaning of the brothers’ conversation took form in his mind.

The younger brother rose, and spoke with a weary resignation that could only come from knowing, many times over, how futile it would be to argue the point. “Don’t torture yourself too long this time. Please. Anyway, Kevin said something about there being pie when you come home.” He trudged off without looking back.

The remaining hunter’s only response was to raise an arm and take a swig from the bottle Castiel could now see in his hand. He sat still, as the angel kept watching, save for the slight shifts of his head as he continued to scan the sky.

The ache in Castiel’s chest had grown to a burning, and spread up and outward into his throat and arms. He felt like he could barely contain it anymore, like if he faltered in the slightest it would burst free from his hands and lips to enfold and devour the target of his longing.

A panicked voice in his mind told him to leave now, before he made things worse, but he instead found himself taking a hesitant step forward, followed by another. The safe distance he’d left between himself and the human evaporated until he was still out of sight, but less than an arm’s length away. His hand trembled as he raised it. It hovered in mid-air for a moment, mere inches from his beloved hunter’s shoulder, as the angel who’d taken on armies in Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell willed himself to have courage. He felt soft flannel brush his fingertips, and for the first time in far too long he said, “Hello, Dean.”

* * *


End file.
